Kurt Angle Talks Retirement, TNA Contract, Movies & More

TNA Champion Kurt Angle spoke to FilmsInReview.com last week about retiring from pro wrestling, his film career and more. Some highlights:

Retiring from Wrestling: "I'm kind of caught in the middle right now but I am making the jump into movies. I'm in four films this year. [...] When you get into professional wrestling and you see how brutal it is and you are on the road for 250-300 days per year, it starts to wear on you a bit. I got to the point where I knew I could not do it anymore. I am 40 years old, and as much as I want to stay with TNA as long as I can, I know I can't go full time forever. I want to provide for my kids and give them everything they want and give them all the things that I never had and save enough for them to get through college."

The Movie He's Currently Filming: "The movie I am working on right now is called WARRIOR. My character's name is Koba. I play an unknown but respected fighter from Russia. I have been taking Russian accent classes and learning how to speak Russian and I have been training my ass off at the Pittsburgh Fight Club. I am so happy they are doing the film in Pittsburgh; it has made it a lot easier on me.[...] He's in this tournament called Sparta. There are 16 of the best fighters in the world. [The story] stemmed from a guy name Fedor Emelianenko who is a highly respected fighter from Russia. He's done so well, but a lot of people don't even know who he is yet because he hasn't fought under UFC. [...] This guy shows zero emotion, he goes out there and he is so good, there isn't anybody that can touch him. I think that he is 41-1. His only loss wasn't really a loss. He got cut and was bleeding so much that they stopped the fight. They are really going way out there with this character. They are bringing back the 80's cold war kind of thing. It's going to be a lot of fun to see the American fighters against the Russian to get the same affect that ROCKY IV did."

Passing Up Working With WWE Films: "I knew I had to make a choice. I knew being in the WWE, the money was there, the movies were there with WWE Films, but I wanted to go outside the circle, the realm of WWE, and spring out on my own. When you are with WWE, you are under the WWE umbrella. John Cena is a big star right now, HHH is a big star, those guys are doing incredibly well and I am very happy for them. But, you are still under that WWE umbrella. I don't blame Vince for doing that. I think that he is going to make a whole new avenue of stars with WWE Films. But I wanted to go beyond WWE Films. I am not saying that I am doing films that are better than their films, I think that Vince is doing a great job with some of the films he has done already. They have done real well on DVD and fairly well in the movie theaters so my hat is off to him but I just didn't want to be under that umbrella."